Thursday, October 18, 2007

Racism - LOLz galore

Check this article bout Dr James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his contribution in the discovery of the structure of DNA, said in an interview to the Sunday Times:
"The 79-year-old geneticist said he was 'inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa' because 'all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.'. He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that 'people who have to deal with black employees find this not true'."
Amazing.
But what's more amazing was as I was ready to join the universal response of ridicule to this deeply racist claim I soon found out that the response was hardly universal. check out the comments left on this article:
Black People "less intelligent" scientist claims
here's one gem:
"It is quite possible that black people aren't as intelligent than us. But have you ever seen them dance ? Whenever I see their happy smiling faces with their big white teeth and hear their jovial singsong voices, I really wonder. OK, maybe statistically we are more intelligent, but they seem quite unconcerned about it.
Major Eric Coombes, Tunbridge Wells, England"

3 comments:

Dan said...

I think "Major Eric Coombes" is most likely an ironic front for a mid-twenties joy-boy with a tawdry line in under-developed, home-spun 'satire':

"I'm not racist so I'm going to use racist stereotyping as humour coz, y'know, i'm not racist. Erm, jiggaboo? hurhuryeah. Nig-nog. Ahahaha..ahaaa.. haha.......what was I laughing about again??"

Anyway, not to detract from the main thrust, that's to say that perhaps if all our social policies were geared towards educating the world to an equal 'intellectual' standing, we might be closer to having a 'fair race'... I get the feeling a large portion of the well-educated population of the world aren't particularly into the idea, though, and would prefer to latch onto theories based on 'natural' or 'genetic' 'intelligence'.

But then, does it have to be a race?

semifinalists said...

well, one idea (and it is an idea that Im personally geared towards) is one of historical, political, as well as scientific context in approaching race issues, and lest we forget "moral"issues.
To say that all nations have the same educational standing in the world is a dangerous generalisation in the name of equality, because studied historically and politically, centuries of imperialism and cultural washout by Europeans has not only geared the idea of education, religion, and intelligence (including IQ tests) leaning towards the western mindset and ideals, it also left the rest of the world poorly equipped to adapt/adopt this imposed sets of criteria.
Could this be another reason why some countries are not passing their "IQ tests" with flying colours?
To assume that after all that history the liberal minded can just press a reset button and defy all these circumstances and approach the world as if everyone's suddenly in equal footing is dangerous.
everything in context.

f

semifinalists said...

oh.. that said.. the "genetic intelligence" shortcut to answering the problem is just escapist n racist

f